Nashville, State Education Officials at Odds

As state officials talk about withholding money from Metro Nashville Public Schools as punishment for ignoring their directives, a veteran Metro board member said that kind of sanction would only hurt children.

“They will be punishing the children,” said 27-year board member Ed Kindall. “It’s about the children learning, and withholding funds doesn’t help anybody.”

When the Metro school board on Tuesday defied a State Board of Education order to approve a charter school application for Great Hearts Academies, it became the first to ignore a state board mandate, said Gary Nixon, state board executive director.

The Metro board voted to indefinitely defer approval of the charter school until it created a student transportation plan that would encourage diversity by giving all Nashville students access to the school.